Best Broadway Lyric? — Page 2

All of 'Marry Me A Little'

Funniest Lyric has to be...

"Watchin' a vegetarian being told she just chicken....."

You know the rest!!!

I also love some of the naturalistic lyrics of JRB!

Thank you, that song is hilarious, I love your RENT qoute

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My favorite lyrics:

"Life is just a bowl of cherries
Don't take it serious, life's too mysterious!
You work, you save, you worry so
but you can't take the dough when you go, go, go.
So keep repeating: it's the berries!
The strongest oak must fall
The sweet things in life to you were just loaned
So how can you lose what you never owned?
Life is just a bowl of cherries, so
Live and laugh!
Laugh and love!
Live and laugh at it all!"
- from BIG DEAL and later featured in FOSSE.

Also "I Am What I Am" from LA CAGE AUX FOLLES has one of the best lyrics I know.

Updated On: 1/29/06 at 03:16 PM

All the lyrics of "Maria" from West Side Story.

Apologies for posting the whole song, but...

It's a masterpiece, I say
They will cheer every word, every letter
I wish I felt that way
I believe I can put it better
Now, then, attend, as friend to friend,
Our declaration committee
For us I see immortality
In Philadelphia City
A farmer, a lawyer,
And a sage a bit gouty in the leg
You know, it's quite bizarre to think that here we are
Playing midwives to an egg

We're waiting for the chirp, chirp, chirp
Of an eaglet being born
Waiting for the chirp, chirp, chirp
On this humid Monday morning in this congressional incubator
God knows the temperature's hot enough to hatch a stone
Let alone an egg
We're waiting for the scratch, scratch, scratch
Of that tiny little fellow
Waiting for the egg to hatch
On this humid Monday morning in this congressional incubator
God knows the temperature's hot enough to hatch a stone
But will it hatch an egg?

The eagle's going to crack the shell
Of the egg that England laid
Yes, sir, we can tell, tell, tell
On this humid Monday morning in this congressional incubator
And just as Tom here has written,
Though the shell may belong to Great Britain
The eagle inside belongs to us
And just as Tom here has written
We say, "To hell with Great Britain!"
The eagle inside belongs to us!

Updated On: 1/29/06 at 04:58 PM

To being an us for once, instead of a them.

For I have crossed the Rubicon
Let the bridge be burned behind me
Come what may, Come what may
Commitment!

I love that. I obviously was never fortunate enough to see Daniels on stage, but those lines give me chills every time I see the film version.

I love this bit from Chess a lot:

Here we have two men caring
About a minor sporting triumph, sharing
A show with esoterics,
Paranoids, hysterics
Who don't pay attention to
What goes on around them
They leave the ones they love the way they found them
Is this the life they need?
A childish, selfish greed
While those around them bleed to death

Hm, there are so many great lyrics to choose from. I'll definitely agree with the Les Mis mention, especially the haunting "Javert's Suicide." The chorus of Aida's "Written in the Stars" is great as well.

Updated On: 1/29/06 at 06:20 PM

"Just remembering you've had an 'and'
When you're back to 'or'
Makes the 'or' mean more than it did before" ~ ITW

"Women are irrational, that's all there is to that!
There heads are full of cotton, hay, and rags!
They're nothing but exasperating, irritating,
vacillating, calculating, agitating,
Maddening and infuriating hags!" - MFL

"There's a hole in the world like a great black pit
And the vermin of the world inhabit it
And it's morals aren't worth what a pig could spit
And it goes by the name of London.

At the top of the hole sit the privileged few
Making mock of the vermin in the lower zoo
Turning beauty into filth and greed. I, too,
Have sailed the world and seen its wonders
For the cruelty of men is as wonderous as Peru
But there's no place like London!" ~ Sweeney

"We build a treehouse -- I keep it from shaking
Little more glue ev'ry time that it breaks
Perfectly balanced -- then I start making
Conscious, deliberate mistakes." ~ L5Y

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Updated On: 1/29/06 at 07:56 PM

"Yes, but even one prick, it's my thing about blood -"
"Well, it's sick!"
"It's no sicker than your thing with dwarfs..."
"Dwarves!"
"Dwarfs..."
"Dwarves are very upsetting..."

dancingpirate - if it's in the actual book, why would that make it less eligible. The book is nearly 1500 pages long full of great quotes - for the authors to choose that phrase and use it so effectively certainly wouldn't disqualify it for me! (And I'm not going back and rereading the book again looking for it - and yes, "rereading again" is right, I've read it twice already).

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I figure I can revive this thread instead of starting a new one. I was listening to "A Chorus Line" and just thought this has to be one of the best, most generation-defining lyrics ever.

"Too young to take over, too old to ignore."

Ah, I just love it. Also, from "The Producers":

"The urge to merge can rob us of our senses
The need to breed can make a man a drone
We must be on alert with our defenses
For every skirt will test testosterone."

Since I know the whole score of Avenue Q I can't pick the "best lyrics" but I think Avenue Q wins!

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SweetQ: Your opinion (and everyone else's) is subjective. There is no such thing as the ultimate best. Maybe this thread should be retitled "Your Favorite Broadway Lyrics."

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